We recently visited the third Inland location of Thai Spoon, and it’s definitely a family affair. Daughter Montha runs the Loma Linda spot along with her husband, Nopthared, who hails from the northern region of Thailand where heat and sour flavors hold sway.

Since we’ve eaten at the other two Thai Spoon incarnations (in Highland and Redlands), we were looking for dishes we’ve not previously encountered.

We began with a couple of appetizers — Golden Triangles and All Wrapped Up.

The latter is the more interesting of the two, with plump shrimp and chicken paste wrapped up in egg noodles and deep-fried to a golden brown crispness. The item is served with a sweet and spicy dipping sauce.

Golden Triangles are mainly fried wontons with a dab of spiced ground chicken in the middle, also served with the sweet and spicy dipping sauce.

Moving on, the Under Sea salad is a blend of seafood — a few shrimp, mussels, small scallops and mock crab meat minicylinders, plus an abundance of sauteed calamari rings, all bathed in a blend of fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. Everything is tossed together with lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, green onions and specks of red chilies.

The dish is designated with one chili pepper and unless you’re a hard-core chili aficionado, will provide enough heat for most diners.

We also ordered a couple of items listed as “three chilies” on the spiciness scale, but requested they be toned down to the one-chili level. For me, too much forward chili heat can mask the overall flavors of a dish.

One of those dishes was kaeng pah curry (also known as Jungle curry), and the other was spicy fillets.

Kaeng pah is a classic northern Thai dish made with a clear broth rather than one infused with coconut milk. Pieces of galangal, a member of the ginger family, impart a slight numbing sensation to the overall taste profile. The three-chili version is probably the spiciest curry on the menu.

The dish is chock-full of green beans, red and green bell pepper strips, sliced zucchini and Thai basil, with your choice of chicken, beef, pork or tofu. Even though we toned down the heat, it was quite nostril-clearing.
The broth is a thing of beauty. It’s highly aromatic and lingers on the palate for several seconds.

Our favorite item was the spicy fillets — a generous amount of battered and lightly fried sole in a beautifully rendered sauce with Thai basil, chili and pungent kaffir lime leaves. Of particular note was the fact that the sauce didn’t penetrate the light layer of batter, which would have made it soggy. The lovely array of flavors will have your taste buds jumping for joy.

Stir-fried eggplant with bell peppers, onions and basil in a special soy bean sauce with a choice of meat or tofu (Photo by Dorene Cohen)

The last dish of the evening was a stir-fry of Asian eggplant, bell peppers and basil in a soy bean sauce which wasn’t overly salted. It also comes with a choice of meat or tofu. The highlight was how perfectly creamy the mini eggplant cylinders were, including the skin — ahh, the wonders of stir-fry, particularly when not too much oil is added to the pan. The dish also can be ordered at the two-chili heat level.

David Cohen is a freelance dining critic and food co-editor for Inland Empire Magazine. Send him email at dcohen4@verizon.net and follow him on Twitter @dcfoodfiles.